


And The Stars Look Very Different Today

by SilverSkiesAtMidnight



Category: Bumblebee (2018), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending, Charlie Goes With Bumblebee, Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Friendship, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Learning to move on, Mentions of Charlie/Memo, Mild Injury, Not Bay Movie Compliant, Optimus sort of adopts Charlie in the background, Post-Canon, The ending I really wanted and didn't get, so i wrote it myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 14:32:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19211380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSkiesAtMidnight/pseuds/SilverSkiesAtMidnight
Summary: She can still turn back, she knows. She’s gotten Bumblebee where he needs to go, he’s as safe as he’s going to be, and he doesn’t need her anymore. She can go back to her family, back to Memo. Finish building the Camaro.Bumblebee makes a strange, high-pitched sound she’s never heard before, and she looks at him to see he appears to be scanning something, out in the direction of the bridge. Then, he collapses down, into an absolutely gorgeous bright yellow Camaro.She gapes at him. “Are you telling me you could’ve been a Camaro this whole time?”He beeps at her, and the driver’s side door swings open, a clear invitation.She gets in.





	And The Stars Look Very Different Today

They drive from the tower to the beach, the same place where she first taught him to remain unseen. 

Which is exactly what they need to do now. 

Every inch of Charlie aches, and Bumblebee’s engine sounds strained. As much as she’d like to put as much distance between them and the tower as possible, it’s obvious that they need a safe place to rest and recover first.

“S’okay, Bee,” she murmurs tiredly, patting his wheel. “Just a little further for tonight.” 

He doesn’t even seem to have the energy to search the radio for words to borrow, just whirs gratefully. 

After a last struggle to drive across the sand, they park at the base of the cliffs, far enough from the water that the tide won’t be an issue. It’s secluded, and the shadows hide them pretty well. They’ll just have to hope it’s enough. 

She turns the engine off habitually, even though she doesn’t really need to, and they’re left alone in the sudden quiet. 

For what feels like the first time in days, she’s able to breathe deeply. 

“We made it, Bee,” she whispers, watching the waves roll slowly against the shore. “We’re still alive.” 

The radio crackles. “ _Sweet dreams are made of this,_ ” Bumblebee sings, and she laughs, the kind of deep belly laugh that comes from seeing your best friend captured and restrained, being electrocuted, bringing your best friend back from the dead, getting blown up, chased by the military, blown up again, fighting giant alien robots, and somehow coming out the other side. 

She flops her head back against the headrest, and cringes, hissing in pain. 

Instantly, the car around her unfolds with a series of slightly frantic buzzes, setting her ever so gently down on the sand as Bumblebee stares at her with wide, worried blue eyes. 

She reaches up to touch her tender head, relieved to find it’s long stopped bleeding. “I’m fine, I promise. Forgot I even hit it.” 

“ _Need a...doctor, doctor,_ ” Bumblebee says insistently. 

Charlie snorts. “I don’t think that’s really an option right now, Bee. Seriously, I just need to rest a little, I’ll be fine in no time.” She eyes him critically, a shadow of her earlier terror as she watched the harpoons pierce him passing through her mind as she takes in the dents and scuffs visible even in the faint moonlight. She shivers. 

“What about you?” she asks, frowning. It seems stupid to ask if he’s hurt, so she doesn’t. “Are you gonna be okay?” 

He shrugs jerkily, and she frowns deeper, ignoring her sore muscles to clamber to her feet. “Nope, c’mere, your shoulder doesn’t sound right when it moves.” 

She tugs at gently at his arm until he leans forward enough for her to examine the joint. She hisses in sympathy as she sees the gash where one of the Decepticon’s had struck him with a piece of metal. “Can you turn your headlights on for a sec?” she asks, and he obliges. Light blasts her eyes, and she flinches, the headache she’s been ignoring flaring up like a knife to her skull.

Bumblebee whines apologetically, and the lights dim to a much more tolerable level. 

“Thanks. That was my bad, I should have seen that coming,” she reassures him, unsquinting her eyes. 

She finds herself humming softly as the minutes pass and she studies the damage, occasionally having the transformer move the arm slightly so she can see the way the pieces work together. 

It’s easy to forget her exhaustion like this, so focused on the mechanical marvel before her, on learning the tiny portion of the system she can see. 

It’s beautiful. 

“Okay,” she says at last, clambering down off of him to sit on the sand. “I _think_ the worst of it is the damage to the cabling. I’m pretty sure I could fix it, if I had the supplies. Sorry I can’t do more right now.”

She leans back on her arms, her palms in the sand, and tips her head back, eyes closed as she breathes in the wind off the sea. A moment later, Bumblebee moves too, the ground vibrating under her palms as he changes position. She cracks an eye open to peer at him, and snorts when she sees he’s mirroring her posture. 

The radio pops and crackles. “ _Stars shining bright above you…_ ” Bee sings in Ella Fitzgerald’s voice, and she smiles, looking up. 

Carefully, wary of her aches and bruises, she lies down on her back in the sand. “They sure are, Bee,” she says softly. “They sure are.” 

They lie there, resting, watching the stars spin slowly above them for a long time. 

Tomorrow, tomorrow they’ll figure out what comes next, where they’ll be safe, what the next step forward is. But tonight the stars are bright and they are alive, and she knows that that’s nothing to scoff at. 

… 

It turns out they don’t need to wait for tomorrow. The next step finds them first. 

Charlie doesn’t remember falling asleep, but clearly she did, because she’s awakened by a sharp, loud beeping. 

Her first instinct is to reach for her alarm clock. But she reaches to smack it, her fingers find only sand. She opens her eyes, and sees not her familiar ceiling, but a navy blue sky still dotted with stars.

It’s then that her brain registers where she is and what’s happened, and she scrambles to her feet, blinking sleep out of her eyes in her sudden terror that they’ve been found, that they’re going to take Bee away again, and how could she be so _stupid_ falling asleep like that - 

Bumblebee is fine. 

He’s chirping excitedly, his little antenna things swiveling on his head as the beeping stops. 

He presses something in his chest, and the hologram of another robot is suddenly beamed from him, standing about the same size of Charlie in front of them. 

“B-127,” the message rumbles, with the kind of voice that commands attention, and Charlie unconsciously stands a little straighter. “I hope this message finds you safe and well. We were relieved to pick up your signal yesterday, and we are on our way to Earth now. Our scans of the planet show a large bridge, roughly 500 units north-west of your position. That is where I will meet you, three solar cycles from now. Good luck, B-127.”

The hologram blinks out of existence. 

“Holy shit,” Charlie breathes.

Bumblebee is practically bouncing, chattering through radio stations so fast she doesn’t have a clue what he’s saying. 

“Shh! _Shhh!_ ” She hisses, waving her arms wildly. “Bee, we’re _hiding!_ ” 

Bumblebee clatters down into car form. The effect is slightly ruined by the fact that he’s still vibrating excitedly. 

She pokes his bumper. “You can...untransform, you just have to stay quiet!” 

He unfolds again, though remains slightly hunkered down, blue eyes shining as he clicks and buzzes. 

“Your guys are coming for you,” she whispered, still slightly awed. 

“ _There’s a starman waiting in the sky,_ ” he agrees. 

“That one in the message. Is that your leader?” 

His head bobs quickly. “ _Optimus Prime,_ ” he says, and she recognizes the voice as another recording of the person they’ve just seen. 

“Wow,” she murmurs, looking out at the rising swell of soft dawn light coming over the horizon. “You’re not going to be alone anymore.”

Something touches her side lightly, and she looks to see the massive metal hand reaching out to tap her. 

Charlie meets the electric blue eyes watching her, and the radio hums in the voice of Sonic Youth, 

“ _She is not alone, she is not alone today._ ”

She smiles, and sets her own hand on the great metal one. She looks back out at the now-pink waves sparkling in front of them. 

“So,” she says, taking a deep breath. “San Francisco, huh?”

…

When Hank comes into the shop that morning, he finds someone waiting for him. 

Charlie’s leaning against the yellow Beetle. She gives him a small wave as he walks up to the front entrance to unlock it. 

“You look like shit, kid,” is the first thing he thinks and says when he gets close enough to see her properly. She’s got dark circles under her eyes so big they look like bruises, dirt and smudges all over her skin, and several _actual_ bruises and scrapes that he can see. Her hair has been pulled back in a messy ponytail, but even he can tell it needs brushing. 

She gives him a slightly strained, slightly embarrassed smile. “Yeah, well, what can I say, it’s been a long day. Anyway, I just need a minute or two, I know exactly what I’m looking for,” she says, jerking a thumb towards the shop. 

He shrugs, turning to put the key in the lock, he hears her hiss, “ _Do NOT move_.”

Looking back at her suspiciously, he sees her turning quickly away from the car. 

Hank leans over slightly to look past her. There’s no one inside. 

He raises an eyebrow. 

“What?” she says defensively. “I’ve seen _you_ talk to cars.”

She darts past him into the shop before he can even begin to think of a response to that. 

He makes his way over to his seat behind the counter, switching on the little TV as he sits down. To his happy surprise, he finds the signal is coming through just fine today, and he turns it to a rerun of Happy Days. But his eyes keep slipping from the screen to the opening of the yard Charlie is rooting through, concern niggling at the back of his mind. 

True to her word, she hurries back in just a few minutes later, a small spool of hydraulic cabling held in her arms. 

“Just this, thanks,” she says breathlessly, glancing out front through the window.

“You’re looking like you’re scared someone’s going to steal that pile of junk,” he says, taking note of the too-innocent look she gives him in return. 

“Crime’s on the rise,” she says, very solemnly. “It’s the...Russians.”

“Hmph,” he responds. 

She reaches for her pockets, a look of fear growing on her face. Then, she closes her eyes, and sighs through her teeth. “I lost my wallet,” she mutters.

There’s a shallow cut on her temple, peeking out from under her hairline. 

“Just take it, it’s yours,” Hank tells her, not quite managing his usual dismissive gruffness. 

She looks at him, a funny sort of intensity in her eyes. Then, she picks up the cables. 

“Thank you,” she says, and he feels, somehow, that she’s not just thanking him for the cables. 

Hank isn’t good at words at the best of times, and he’s not good at them now either. He just tips his head to her. “Anytime,” he says, and watches her slip out the door and back to her car. 

It almost looks like she’s talking as she sits in the driver’s seat. And the girl apparently hasn’t figured out safe driving habits yet, because she is very clearly unfolding a map as she pulls out of the lot, not even looking out the windshield. 

_Odd one, that girl, very odd,_ Hank thinks to himself, turning slowly back to his little TV. 

…

Charlie steps out of the car, and looks down from their little clearing. The Golden Gate Bridge towers in elegant, tall, strong arcs before them.

She laughs into the wind, as Bumblebee transforms behind her, an almost childlike feeling of glee and excitement filling her heart. 

“Alright Bee, what next?” she asks, looking up at him. 

“ _He’ll be...here soon,_ ” he chirps, antennae wiggling as he peers down at the road. 

She watches the traffic, searching for any cars without drivers, any signs that one isn’t what they seem, but she can’t really tell from up here.

She can still turn back, she knows. She’s gotten Bumblebee where he needs to go, he’s as safe as he’s going to be, and he doesn’t need her anymore. She can go back to her family, back to Memo. Finish building the Camaro. 

Bumblebee makes a strange, high-pitched sound she’s never heard before, and she looks at him to see he appears to be scanning something, out in the direction of the bridge. Then, he collapses down, into an absolutely gorgeous bright yellow Camaro. 

She gapes at him. “Are you telling me you could’ve been a Camaro this whole time?” 

He beeps at her, and the driver’s side door swings open, a clear invitation. 

She gets in. 

Bumblebee peels out of their little clearing, zipping down to the road beneath. 

Several people honk as they swing wildly onto the road, and she’s laughing breathlessly even as she smacks the steering wheel lightly. 

“Do you _want_ to get the police on our asses?” She scolds with no real heat. 

His engine revs, and they weave between traffic, picking up speed. Then, just as quickly, they level out. 

She looks out through the driver’s side window to see they’re keeping pace with a blue and red semi-truck. There’s no one in the driver’s seat.

As three, they carry on, into San Francisco and beyond. 

…

The Northern California woods are dense. Private. A perfect spot for a couple giant aliens to stand around and chat. Charlie feels very small, standing at Bumblebee’s side and looking up at the very, _very_ large rebellion leader, and very out of place. 

Optimus Prime kneels down on the forest floor to study her. “And what is your name, human?”

“Charlie,” she answers, lifting her chin. 

“ _She...is...my friend,_ ” Bumblebee tells him. “ _She...helped me._ ” 

“And I want to keep helping,” she says. “That’s why I’m here.” 

Optimus tilts his head consideringly, and then rises to his feet. “A friend of B-127 is certainly a friend of mine, and of all Autobots. It will be good to have a human on our side.” 

He turned then to Bumblebee. “Old friend, you kept this planet safe.” He placed a hand on the smaller robot’s shoulder. “Because of you, we have a future, B-127.” 

“ _My name...is..._ Bumblebee,” he says proudly, and she recognizes her own voice in his name. 

Above them, the sky lights up, and they turn to face the seven approaching comets, growing bigger and bigger with every passing second. 

The rebellion has arrived. 

…

As it turns out, it _is_ good to have a human on their side. 

The Autobots arrive injured. Minor things, mostly, strained and broken cables, worn out circuits and frayed wiring. Signs of the strain that the battle and refugee life has taken on them. 

Back home, she is told, they had machines to fix anything they couldn’t fix themselves, with clever little arms that could get in and repair smaller damages. 

They have no such machines now. But they do have a mechanic. 

At night, she doesn’t work on her car anymore. Instead, it’s Prime himself who takes her under his wing, combing over schematics of Autobots and their functions, answering questions and helping her piece together the intricate alien tech. 

For the first time in a very long time, she feels like she’s in the right place. 

…

Memo hears the sound of a motor coming down the road outside his house, and somehow, he just _knows_. 

It’s possible that for the past year and a half, some part of him has been listening to the sound of every car that comes down their little road without even realizing it, closer than he ever used to listen before the day he barged into a pretty girl’s garage and into more than he was ever prepared to know about the universe he lives in. 

But this one. This time. He knows. 

When he opens the front door, not even bothering to check through the window, there’s a bright yellow motorcycle parked at the curb, and there she is, leaning against it. Her hair is chopped short, barely reaching her chin, and the leather jacket she’s wearing isn’t one he’s seen before. She’s smiling as he steps out.

It suits her.

“Feel like going for a ride?” she calls. Behind her, the motorcycle chirps, and flashes its lights brightly. 

He shuts the front door behind him. 

…

He rides clinging to her waist the whole way to the cliff they’d driven to, once, what feels like both a long time ago and no longer than it takes to wake up from a vivid dream. Neither of them bother with helmets. 

There’s no one here, in early December, but the crisp air that rises off the sea is still perfectly pleasant. 

Bee doesn’t risk transforming fully here, even fairly secluded, but a hand emerges as he climbs off the bike to pat him cheerfully on the head.

“ _Good to see... a friend like you,_ ” the radio chirps. 

Memo grins, giving one of the handles a squeeze as he passes. “Nice to see you safe and sound,” he answers sincerely.

He walks over to where Charlie is standing against the guardrail that’s been put up since the last time they were here. 

Far below, the waves crash against the stone. 

“You coulda called, you know,” he says, and immediately feels a little bad about it. “I mean, I’m not like mad you didn’t or anything, obviously you had other things going on, but like, you just kinda left, and it’s just...I mean, it’s really nice to see you again.” _A year and a half later, still putting your foot in your mouth, huh?_ he thinks, biting his lip before he can keep rambling.

She cringes apologetically. “I’m sorry, Memo. Honestly, I am, you didn’t deserve that. I told Otis to let you know I was okay though, when I first called home. He did, right?”

He nods hurriedly. “Yeah, yeah, he did. He’s been giving me a heads up every time you call.” 

“Good,” she says, relaxing minutely. “I was worried he was being a brat.” 

Memo laughs. “He always is. He’s a good kid though.”

“Yeah, he said you guys have been hanging out together. Apparently you got him into watching horror movies? Mom’s pissed about that, by the way, nice going.”

He puts his hands up defensively, still laughing. “Not my fault the kid’s got good taste.”

“I’m just happy he’s found himself a big brother to teach it to him.” Her face softens slightly, a complicated expression that’s a little sad, a little not passing over it. “I’m really sorry I can’t call more often. We have to drive a couple cities over each time, and to a new city each time, so no one can trace us and figure out where we are.”

“I thought the government knew where you are?” he says, frowning. 

She nods. “The U.S. government does. They’re worried about any other governments figuring it out. Burns’s paranoid as hell about Russia getting his hands on one of them.” 

“I mean, yeah, I probably would be too, if I had that guy’s job.” He looks over his shoulder, and sees Bumblebee has partially unfolded, and one metal hand protruding from the vaguely bike-shaped mass is boredly breaking chunks out of the pavement and flicking them out into the ocean. “I’m surprised he let you guys come back here at all.”

She puffs her cheeks out like a blowfish, her nose wrinkling. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Memo’s grown, these past couple years of his life. He asks, simple and direct. 

“Why are you here?”

Charlie doesn’t answer immediately. She turns, leaning back against the rail, watching Bumblebee crush delicate patterns into the asphalt with one finger. Memo mirrors her position. 

“I have a present for you,” she says after a few seconds. 

He raises an eyebrow at her. “This isn’t going to be the kind of surprise where I get blown up again, is it?”

She snorts. The smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but there’s a kind of warmth in them anyway. He thinks she looks...content. “It’s the good kind, I promise.” She reaches into one of her pockets, and takes out a key, clipped to the inside of her jacket. She unclips it with practiced ease, turning it over in her fingers. 

“This is for you,” she says quietly, but doesn’t offer it to him. 

He waits, patient and puzzled. She hesitates only a moment longer, and then abruptly holds it out to him. “It’s the key to my Camero. The one in my garage. It’s...not a giant robot, but I think you’ll get a lot more use out of it than me. I talked Otis through the last few parts it needed, and I think it should run fine. If it doesn’t, take it down to Hank’s auto shop, they’ll fix whatever he screwed up.”

Memo takes the key on autopilot, staring down at the streak of brass in his palm. Finally, it all clicks, the thing he’s known since he heard the sound of the bike as it pulled up in front of his house. 

“You’re not coming back.”

Slowly, she shakes her head, looking straight at him. There’s no regret in her eyes, not really, but he can read the apology there. 

He takes a deep breath, and finds that there’s no regret in his heart either. Only gratitude and immense fondness, colored by the faintest touch of sorrow. And somehow, growing beneath it all, relief. 

It’s like someone had pressed the pause button, well more than a year and a half before, and he hadn’t even noticed until they’d hit play again.

The waves crash softly in the background, steady as ever. 

He looks down, stroking his finger over the key. “Going somewhere exciting?”

“You could say that. Different, that’s for sure.” 

The wind picks up slightly, rustling the strands of hair that curl around her chin. She brushes them back behind her ears, and tucks her hands into her pockets. “They’ve found another planet. They can’t stay here forever. More of them keep arriving, from being scattered around the galaxy, and they need a home base. A real one. Plus the Decepticons are still out there, still looking, and if they come here again, humanity’s going to be caught in the crossfire. So they’ve been looking for somewhere new, and they think they found a planet that’ll work.” 

He looks at her, sees her watching Bumblebee, a small smile on her lips as he over-balances while reaching to fiddle with the guardrail and tips over where he’s parked, before righting himself again with an embarrassed buzz. 

“And you guys are going.” 

She turns to look back at him, and there’s a gleam in her eye that he recognizes, something fierce and clever and determined. “They need scouts to go ahead of the rest and check it out. Make sure it’s safe, and then keep it that way until everyone else gets there.”

He huffs out a laugh, slowly shaking his head. “That’s so goddamn crazy I don’t even know where to start.” 

“Then don’t. Trust me, I already know,” she says lightly. 

He tips his head back, looking up at the sky. It’s a hazy, cheerful blue, and he thinks of the infinity that lies above them, that always has and always will. “When are you leaving?” he asks.

“Next Tuesday night, a little after midnight. Apparently that’s the best time, puts us on the most efficient course.”

“Wow,” he lets out a breath. “Leaving Earth, a week from today. That’s...something.” 

Bumblebee has now moved on to balancing on his front wheel, rolling back and forth a few feet at a time as he teeters. They watch in silence for several long moments. 

“Are you going to go see your family before you go?” he asks quietly.

Charlie’s fingers fidget with the cuff of her jacket sleeve. “No,” she answers simply. “I’ll call on our way back, say goodbye. But...no.”

He doesn’t argue. He knows this isn’t something he can fully understand, knows he has no place telling her if it’s the right thing or the wrong thing, because he can’t really know himself. “They love you, you know,” he settles on saying, carefully. 

She smiles. “I know. I didn’t always know, but I know now. I love them too. And I don’t...I don’t hate them anymore. I used to, but I just…” she pauses, letting out a sigh through her nose. “I used to think I hated them. But I didn’t. I was just so... _angry,_ because they fit together and I didn’t. I was the broken piece. And it took me a while to figure it out, but...I think I get it now. I wasn’t broken. I was just in the wrong machine. And that wasn’t their fault, and it wasn’t mine. But now -” she breaks off. She swallows heavily, but her words seem steadier when she speaks again. “They deserve to move on. They deserve to be happy, really, truly happy. And so do I.” 

At this, Bumblebee tips back until his rear tire hits the ground again, before rolling slowly forwards to nudge against her leg and chirp comfortingly. She lays a hand on his handlebars, a soft smile on her lips as his engine hums gently. 

She breathes in deeply, rolling her shoulders slightly as she stands up straight, quirking her lips up as she looks at Memo with bright, sparkling brown eyes. “We’ve gotta long trip ahead. I’m guessing you could use a lift home?”

She’s beautiful, so much more so than the girl he’d pined after from afar when they were younger, now that he knows her. But it’s a different kind of beauty now. She’s beautiful in the way the stars are beautiful, beautiful in the way a machine crafted of a thousand tiny gears can come together to form something powerful and intricate. 

“Guess you might as well drop me off at your old place. I’ve got a car to pick up, apparently.”

She beams at him, and they clamber back onto Bumblebee. 

He doesn’t cling quite as tightly to her on the way home. He just enjoys her closeness, and the feeling of the wind against his face.

 

She doesn’t get off the bike when they stop in front of her old house, just puts one foot on the curb to steady them as he gets off. He sees her eyes as they pass over the old garage and Otis’s bicycle he’d gotten at christmas leaning against it, the familiar flowerpots and the new flowers mixed in, the fresh coat of paint over the old door. Familiar, but changed. 

“You know you’re going to war, right?” he says abruptly, not yet moving towards the house. 

She raises an eyebrow at him. It feels suspiciously like the more grown-up version of an eyeroll. “I’m not stupid, Memo. _Obviously_ I know that.”

He puts up his hands reassuringly. “I’m not calling you stupid. _Obviously._ I just wanna make sure that’s really settled in for you. You’re going to go live on an alien planet in the middle of a giant alien robot war. That’s… gonna be rough, no matter how you cut it.”

Charlie tilts her head, looking past him again, at the house she’s leaving behind. She looks back at him with clear, bright eyes. “I can handle rough, if it’s worth doing. Besides,” Bee’s headlights flare on against the coming dusk, his engine snarling to life, folded pieces all along his sides shifting excitedly. 

“It’s not like I’m going to be alone.”

She kicks off the curb, and together they roar off, pivoting a perfect 180 at the end off the street to zip off the way they came. Bee chirps loudly at Memo as they pass, his headlight flaring blue, and then they’re accelerating to a ridiculous speed, blasting past the stop sign without even hesitating. 

He waves after them until he can’t see the light of their headlight any more. 

…

“Hey, if you wanted to, could you just, like, become a spaceship?” Charlie asks, running through her half of pre-flight switches and settings in the modified Autobot escape pod. 

“ _I could…but...it’s cold outside...the earth...and I don’t wanna,_ ” Bee says cheerfully, doing the hundredth and final check of their supplies. 

“Aw, Bee, you shoulda said something, I’d have gotten you a sweater for Christmas. A really, really big sweater.” She stretches across the Autobot-sized console to flip a last switch, and the comms buzz to life. “Hive to Optimus, we are just about ready for liftoff.” 

“Hive?” The leader’s voice comes through, and she knows him well enough by now to recognize the amusement in it. 

“We have _a_ bee. It’s close enough.” She taps the fuel gauge, relieved to see it hasn’t broken again. “Besides, every ship needs a name.”

“Perhaps we’ll put you in charge of naming the new planet. You seem to have a habit of it.” 

She grins. “Let’s focus on getting there first. All ready out there?” 

“Everything’s ready when you are,” he confirms. 

Bumblebee takes his seat beside the much-smaller co-pilot seat they’ve added just for her, and she gives him a thumbs up. 

He places his hand on the throttle, as she adjusts the navigation console. “Course set for the Pleiades Cluster. Ready for liftoff on your command.” 

“Safe travels, Charlie and Bumblebee. Our people thank you. Hive,” Optimus rumbles. 

“Roll out.” 

…

On a cool December evening, Memo drives a newly-restored Camaro out to the cliff above the beach. 

It’s a clear night, and the stars are out. He shuts the car door behind him, and walks to the front of the car, lying back on the hood. Below, the faint sound of the waves against the cliff face rises up to greet him. 

Even in the winter, there are two other cars here. Inside, a pair of young couples are giggling in the backseats. 

He wrinkles his nose, and tunes them out, resting his head on his arm. 

Far above, a yellow star flies through the sky, vanishing into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the Michael Bay movies when I was in, like, middle school, and only barely remember what happens in any of them. I've also never seen any of the animated Transformers, read the comics, any thing like that. This is purely based on the 2018 Bumblebee movie, because I loved it, but this was the ending I really found myself craving, so I wrote it myself. 
> 
> I really hope y'all liked it, and I'd love it if you left a comment or kudos to let me know!! Tbh I wrote this more for my own satisfaction than anyone else's, but I just really love getting comments on fics. Seriously, seeing one of those little "Comment on Fic" emails in my inbox literally makes my day.


End file.
